and consolation. It may seem ridiculous, but
it is nevertheless true, that I took the loss of
my pipe more to heart than every other loss I
had sustained. Doubtless, I ought to have
been thankful I had escaped with my life; but
I cannot say I felt so. I could do nothing but
rock backward and forward on the stone on
which I sat, cold, wet, and shivering, and
bitterly lamenting my hard fate.

How long I might have remained thus, I
cannot say; time passed altogether unheeded; I
marked not the sun's rise, I heeded not the
breaking morn. Lonely, deserted, forlorn, and
sad, I was once more roused to a consciousness
of my position by hunger. I looked round,
and found the rocks on which I sat covered with
oysters. Gathering up a large pebble, I began
breaking some open, and I tore my fingers in
the operation, and felt a sort of savage pleasure
in the pain. After satisfying my hunger, I next
looked round for water, which to my exceeding
joy and thankfulness I found trickling down
one of the rocks. Thither accordingly I hastened,
and took a good long draught. After bathing
my face and washing my hands, I sat down
somewhat refreshed.

What next? I scarcely knew. Anything
rather than sit still; that nearly drove me
wild. I tried to murmur a prayer, but my
thoughts would wander away, and I found that
I could only tranquillise my mind by moving
about. I wandered back to the boat, and, hopeless
as the task was, tried to mend her. I had
with me my pocket-knife, and I tried various
poor devices with it. Although perfectly
convinced of the uselessness of my task, I could not
abstain from working at it, and it was not until
I had thrown away two whole days that I
desisted. The first night I gathered a heap of
long dry fern, and slept on it, rolled up in my
blankets. It was on a Saturday that I landed
on the island, and, although the following day
was Sunday, I worked all day at the boat. It
was not until Monday night that I finally gave
up the attempt.

IV.

The small bay was surrounded by a rocky
rampart, varying in height from ninety to two
hundred feet, surmounted by a dense forest.
At the feet of these rocks was another rock of
from ten to twelve feet broad, sloping and
covered at high tide, but bare at low water, and
encrusted with oysters. The beach was
composed of shingle, descending steeply into the
water. Inland was a small piece of level ground,
about half an acre in extent, the middle of which
was a basin, into which the little spring of
water tumbled, whose waters fell and rose with
the ebb and flow of the tide: the water of the
sea percolating through the pebbly beach. In
this small pond grew a sort of flag called by the
natives of New Zealand raupo, and of which
their huts are mostly built. Round the pond,
the ground was composed of small pebbles,
or gravel and sand; growing over it, was a
coarse kind of bent or grass. Nearer the rocks
which enclosed this flat piece of ground in an
irregular semicircle, grew tall ferns, finding root
in the soil and débris washed down from the
upper grounds, and shaded and kept moist by
the overhanging rocks. Down a steep gully,
narrow and blocked up with huge boulders, fell
the small stream of water, trickling finally in
little rills over the green slimy surface of a
rock about thirty feet high. In the clefts of the
rock were growing shrubs, with here and there
the larger growth of a pohutukawa, a large
crooked limbed evergreen tree found in New
Zealand, and bearing, about Christmas, a most
beautiful crimson bloom: the boat-builders in
New Zealand use the crooked limbs of this
tree for the knees and elbows of their boats. On
the top of the rocks surrounding this small flat of
ground, was the dense forest, and, towering up
again in the far background, were several
volcanic peaks, conical shaped, and rising to a
height of from nine hundred to one thousand
feet, all tree-clad to their summits.

This is an imperfect description of the
place on which, Crusoe-like, I had been so
strangely thrown, with no earthly possessions
beyond a small pocket-knife, a pair of blankets,
a few pieces of broken glass (the remains of
my two bottles which I found on the rocks, and
which I carefully treasured), and my tattered
sails and a broken boat. My long rope I lost
from carelessly leaving it too near the water
when mending my boat. How far the island
was from any inhabited land, I knew not.
I only knew it was uninhabited by human
beings, and that I could have no fellowship with
any of my kind, not even savages, during my
sojourn on it. How long that sojourn was
likely to be, God only knew. Unlike Robinson
Crusoe, I had not even a dog or a cat
for my companion, I had no wrecked ship
wherefrom to draw any resources. I was totally
unarmed. I had no tools wherewith to build,
or plant, or dig; I had no seeds to plant even
had I had tools. I had no books to while away
the long tedious hours, no means whereon to
write even an account of my sufferings and
fate, though perchance they might one day be
read in my bones whitening on the beach. I
was without house or shelter, and without fire.

V.

Tuesday morning came, with rain, and I woke
wet through; fortunately, it was not very cold.
After I had been down to the rocks and taken
my morning meal of oysters, I sat down and
had a long consultation with myself about a
house. I examined all the rocks to see if I
could find a cave. I did find a small one; but
I could not live in it, for the water dripped
incessantly from the roof, and the floor was wet.
My next thought was to build a small hut after
the fashion of the Maories, and I spent the
whole of that and the two following days in
cutting with my knife the bulrushes or raupo
in the swamp, and two days more in tying it up
in bundles, using the flax I found growing near
the pond for that purpose. All this occupied that
week. The employment diverted my thoughts